March 12, 2025

RIO DE JANEIRO - Day 4 - Copacabana Beach & Sugarloaf Mountain

You know I love a good beach! This is one! Even though it was man made. They filled in the shore line area to make the wide spread arch perfect for all the hotels and swanky residential towers across the street. The sand is a powdery and well groomed and the people watching top notch! Volleyball courts line the back of the beach and the most exciting games to watch are footy where they can only use their head and feet for shots. No hands!

After a couple of hours of Beach time we headed to SugarLoaf Mountain tramway. The plan was to be on top of the mountain for sunset. The crowds and weather did not cooperate and the views from atop were largely covered in clouds! The tram ride is two lifts in total and we did manage to see the City lights for night time views when we came back down to the mid point.

By Patricia Patrick October 13, 2025
Ternate, Indonesia, which is both the name of the city and island, and is part of the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It is a port that sees maybe 3 Cruise ships a year. However, they really made an effort to show us the best of what they can offer. It's mainly a Muslim country, and we knew we had to dress discretely, but we knew little else. We didn't have our typical port talk prior, due to a technical issue with the AV equipment. Ben a fellow resident, organized an island tour, with about 8 stops, for 90 of us residents.
By Patricia Patrick October 10, 2025
Cebu greeted our Ship with a big warm welcome, despite having just been rocked by a major Earthquake, days before our arrival. The Minister of Tourism arrived with a motorcade and she proceeded to chat with the residents and thank us, for all our support.
By Patricia Patrick October 2, 2025
Today we were Cave explorers! We went to the one of UNESCO newly classified 7 NEW WONDERS OF NATURE - The Puerto Princesa Underground River.